Navigation

The Autistic Patient's Manifesto

For those in the health care profession please take a moment to read through what I consider to be merely the starting point of the Autistic Patient’s Manifesto.

A patient with autism needs the world to slow down. If you live life on a carousel with events careening out of control on a daily basis, imagine what life is like in a hospital setting. Alarms buzzing, lights flashing and burning the eyes with the intensity of a thousand suns, people darting left and right, being wheeled from room to room—life in a clinical setting moves quickly with no recognizable pattern of predictability. The autistic individual thrives in predictability. Make your movements, your actions, and words as slow and predictable as possible because nothing else is in that environment.

A patient with autism needs environmental adjustments. If you live life hearing more, smelling more, feeling more, and tasting more—that hospital gown isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s scratches with the intensity of thousand tiny bees. That medication doesn’t merely taste like cherries gone amuck—it burns like a thousand shots of vodka. That respirations alarm screams with the intensity of a thousand civil defense air sirens. That anesthetic smell doesn’t just hit you once when you walk in—it washes over you again and again like the crashing of a thousand waves drowning you in a suffocating sea. The autistic individual needs you to control the environment and to adjust his or her surroundings because he or she cannot control it internally.

A patient with autism needs to look away. The eyes are the windows to the soul and contain a thousand mysteries of life. The endless depth and sanctity of the soul blind her eyes and mind. The endless enigma of things said and yet not said reach out from your eyes to hers. The very essence of who you are reaches out to another who may not be ready to reach back. Not yet, not now, not here.

A patient with autism is confused, scared, and in fight or flight. The patient with autism doesn’t want to hold a conversation with you. The patient with autism doesn’t want to listen to the drone of your mindless chatter—words filling the air like smoke and choking the brain. There is such a thing as too much language and too many words. Words that often have no meaning and only serve to further confuse the autistic patient. Words meant to comfort, leave nothing but bewilderment and distraction in their wake. Two, three, and sometimes more staff talking at the same time leaves nothing but an avalanche of babbling gibberish in the brain. The autistic individual needs you to understand that less is more. The autistic individual needs you to understand that ONE person speaks, ONE person at a time.

A patient with autism has the right to someone who ‘speaks’ autism. A patient with autism needs that autistic interpreter no less than the deaf patient needs one. For all procedures, for all communications, for all consent, and in all environments. The patient with autism communicates differently and sometimes not at all. The patient with autism may be silent but this does not mean he or she has nothing to say. The patient with autism may speak relentlessly yet not say what he or she truly wants to say. The patient with autism deserves the right and the respect to be heard, to be understood, and to be given a voice.

A patient with autism is in your hospital and in your clinic right now, this very second. A patient with autism is being denied these things right now in your hospital and in your clinic. A patient with autism suffers and is in pain right now in your hospital and in your clinic. Advocate now. Advocate loudly. Advocate every single time. Because if you don’t, no one else will.

These days too many famous brands and companies are offering their amazing educational products and services online. Now students can find smart custom writing services online by using good search engines. Students can save their time and money as well.